The other day I mentioned that Julio Lugo was among the list of infielders signed to a minor league deal with an invite to Spring Training. The invite has been revoked – Lugo will no longer be joining the Indians this spring. There was speculation that something happened with his physical, since they had already agreed to financial terms. With all of the other mediocre infielders invited to camp on minor league deals, I’m pretty confident that the Indians will be able to make do without him. Now if one of the guys on the 25-man was detained in a foreign country and no longer with the team…a starting pitcher perhaps? That may be somewhat damaging.

All sarcastic comments aside, there are a few other bits of news connected to the Indians that I’ve seen recently:

Even though a number of public comments made it sound as if the Indians never made a formal offer to Carlos Pena, it turns out that they did – for a reported $8 million. Now I’m exactly great at math, but I’m pretty sure that $8 million > $7.25 million (the amount of his deal with Tampa Bay). This happens quite often though; a player may have a preferred team and any competitors need to blow that team out of the water in bidding. Another player who apparently didn’t have any interest in coming to Cleveland (despite the Tribe’s interest in him) is Roy Oswalt. Of course I’ve been joking that maybe these players wanted something more than a minor league deal with an invite to Spring Training.

I like the idea of Pena on a one-year, $8 million deal; it’s too bad he didn’t take the Indians up on their offer. What I hate are multi-year deals for average to decent players. Take for example, Josh Willingham. I liked the idea of Willingham as a right-handed power bat, but I think that a three-year deal is a bit much. Maybe this is just because I’m still haunted by the three-year deal for David Dellucci, but a team as “budget conscious” (i.e. cheap) as the Indians really can’t afford to sign “okay” players to deals longer than a year.

Anyway, I hope everyone is not too crushed about the lack of Julio Lugo for the 2012 season. Hopefully you got this news before you crafted a Lugo shirt for yourself, much as I “fixed” my Carmona shirt a couple of weeks ago (see below). Heck, I’ve got a Victor Martinez shirt and a CC Sabathia shirt collecting dust in my closet, just asking for a duct tape “improvement.” I’ve also got an old Ronnie Belliard shirt, but *nobody* messes with a Ronnie Belliard shirt. (I was going to say “nobody puts Belliard in the corner” but this isn’t Dirty Dancing, and I’m no Patrick Swayze.”)

Why buy new shirts when you can just "remodel" the old ones? They're all going to leave town eventually anyway...just rip the duct tape off when they do.

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Actually, you could say that the old-school Carmona shirt has increased in value, since it refers to a person that does not exist. It could even be construed as hip. All you need now is a pair of thick-frame glasses and skinny jeans, maybe a few piercings.